Always be my bubbi.

Why hello there? How are you? We're ok... Chloe has unfortunately had an allergic reaction to what we believe is a insect bite of some description, so all is not well. She's currently asleep in our bed, 3 hours earlier in the day than normal, so clearly sick! But whilst she is resting I wanted to make the most of my 'free' time and get the blog done.....as hard as it is to get motivated! You know each month the 23rd rolls around and I sigh and groan about doing this.... but when I look back at each post, I am filled with such happiness about the amazing gift I am giving our daughter. How cool is it to have such a keepsake of your childhood? And so I drag myself through the process of writing this... organising, editing photos and videos, writing the memories down and reading aloud to Jarratt to check for any errors.... By the time it's finished, I am again filled with deep satisfaction that for at least another month, I have not thrown the towel in. I also find myself gasping at just how quickly time is flying by... as I see Chloe slowly transforming from baby to toddler to child. Its a little confronting and scary, but exciting and relieving at the same time. But no matter how old she gets and no matter how many posts I do documenting her growing up.... she will always be my "bubbi".

 And so... without further adue... please enjoy this months effort, xxx

STATS
Height: 82cm
Weight: 11kgs
Size: 1
Shoe: 6

EATING and DRINKING

 

Chloe unfortunately has gone off her food as of late, but we have discovered there is a reason. Just two days ago I spied one eye tooth through on the top left and another bludging just below the surface (top right). She tends to go off her food when she's teething so its just a matter of time before we're back into the swing of things. She will still dive right in for some meals over others though, so she is obviously developing a taste for certain foods over others. She loves garlic bread, potato mashed with pumpkin, skewers, cheese, peas and corn. She will also eat mushrooms straight out of the bag on the walk home from the shop, but turn her nose up at them in salads or cooked and put through pasta... go figure? She'll make a beeline for the grapes in IGA but will only eat them off the vine at home. Crazy little quirks she's developing.

She's also able to say 'cut' now. Which makes for interesting dinning experiences when she wants her own knife. And not the safe baby one, the mega sharp steak knife. Just like mummy and daddy. She's also starting to get the errks on occasions about sitting in the high chair. So we're looking at options there. For the time being she is just sitting on one of the dining room chairs but she does need a bit of propping up.

Chloe still has milk first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I'm not really sure when we should start phasing that out?! I remember being told that you need to slowly wean them off their night time milk before toilet training so that's something I'm keeping in the back of my mind.  But as it is she's pretty in love with her milk, saying it as soon as we get her out of bed in the morning. 'Milk mummy please'

 

COMMUNICATION

 

Chloe's vocab is out of sight. She can say a bunch of words now and is learning words exponentially. She seems to have a new handful of words each week! But her speech is still a bit of the baby babble. So while we understand her, I'm sure others probably wouldn't. I don't think I could even rattle a list of words off succinctly, I'd surely miss a heap, so I wont. The words that we are pushing are 'Ta' and 'Please' and she is ACE at these. Having a well mannered child is obviously something we all strive for, but was an absolute firm line for Jarratt and I. Working in a school I all too often am shocked at the manners displayed by students. I do not want my daughter to grow up with a sense of entitlement and lack of gratitude! So from an early age, as you all know, once 'MORE' came around, we quickly trained her in 'More, PLEASE'. So far she'll say Ta and Please without much prompting, which makes us both very proud. I wholeheartedly think she is a good kid, but even good kids need to be taught manners.

The one word she has begun using and one we really don't like, we assume she's picked up from day care since we don't use it at home, is 'mine'. We are doing our best to explain ownership to her, for example that the car wheel at the park is not hers, its everyone's. But with those difficult 'terrible twos' fast approaching, I think its going to be an uphill battle. And whilst Chloe is a down right amazing toddler, she is still a toddler who does not have a well developed method of communication and that's where her frustration lies. She explains that she wants to car, we explain she needs to share and we expect her to listen to our request/demand, while we in the same breathe we have not listened to her. Its a difficult tightrope to walk.

Songs and singing have been a great way to teach Chloe new vocab with 'Open, Shut them' and 'Old Macdonald' being firm favourites. Practical, action songs which she can then use the language of in everyday conversation are great! She will now often sit down and open and shut her hands whilst singing the song... she then says open please mummy, when she wants something out of the toy box, or cupboard she cant open. The application of the old word in a new way is very impressive. Ok, I'll take my teacher hat off now ;-)

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS

Chloe just loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooves her bike. Over the last month or so she has become extremely confident riding it around and hooning down hills. Yes, I said hooning. She is a dare devil flying down hills and driveways! Often Jarratt and I will take her out in the afternoon. As the weeks have rolled by she has needed us less and less. Now taking Chloe out for a ride, becomes a nice bit of down time for Jarratt and I to catch up with each other.... and its ever so handy that her bike is stored in the garage, right by the beer and cider. Two birds one stone ;-)

And whilst ballet lessons have been put on the backburner with me now working an additional day (Wednesday), Swimming has been going gang busters! Although there had been an air of anxiety for me floating around lessons.... You see, we were hitting that period of time where all her mates were going to start moving up a level as they all have turned two or are turning two shortly. Then poor Chloe would be left in the class for almost 3 months on her own..... and I was dreading it. Last year when this happened Chloe took a real step backwards in her ability and her joy for swimming all but dwindled! Thankfully, due to the other parents and I rallying together and the kindness of one of the swimming coordinators, the class is just going to be rolled over and no one will have to move! Yay! I'm so happy. It means all the developments Chloe has been making and enjoyment she gets each Friday will not be affected!

And even though ballet is not happening at the moment.... Chloe still does like to dance and wiggle at any and all opportunities. I think she gets her smooth moves from daddy ;-)

SLEEPING

 

So after returning from Japan where she slept in a lot of beds and paired with the fact that she no longer sleeps in a cot at day care. We have officially converted Chloe's cot into a toddler bed.... and we have not looked back! She is so happy with the changes in her sleeping arrangements that she will even put herself to bed now. The only problem is Jarratt and I both had anxieties about her falling out of bed onto the floorboards so Jarratt installed a roll bar, which is quite difficult for her to get over. So although she will TAKE herself to bed... she can't actually get IN. So we still have to help her, despite her objections.

She has also this week started to ask for a pillow when she goes to sleep. It was one of the things we tried when she was having a run of bad nights and now something she asks for along with her blanket to be put over her.... its very sweet. All these little changes in sleeping arrangements makes me really realise how grown up she is getting and how fast time goes really go.

LOVES and HATES

 

Other than her bike, her other main squeeze at the moment is 'bubba's'. Chloe just LOVES babies! If she was a grown woman I'd be saying she was clucky. She really is baby nuts! She shows real deep affection any time we visit with a baby, be it Zoe, Bailey or even brand new Lickity Split Lily. She is soft, kind, and very generous with the kisses. I think the universe is trying to tell me something...... For now, however, I'm going to carry on ignoring the universe ;-)

 

Trips to the park are also a firm favourite with Chloe - and an almost daily occurrence when she's home with Dad or I. She just loves our local park, with the stairs, bridge, car and 'round da round'. More recently she has become a bit of a demon on the slide. Travelling down it a breakneck speed..... when only a few weeks ago she'd want to hold your hand whilst she slid down. Its crazy how fast she learns and grows in confidence!

She really loves being independent, and this is starting to show in really cute ways like wanting to 'walk' from the bath to where we change her for bed. She continues to love driving the car, but it has to be on! As well as being creative such as painting and sticking.

The only really thing she 'hates' at the moment is mummy leaving. She's been very particular about me doing things for her at the moment over Jarratt and will often cry and say 'no daddy' and wave her hand at him when he offers to take her to the bath, brush her teeth or read a book. Its been very hard on him and understandably he gets frustrated with it. But I'm sure its a stage, and whilst it is exhausting being a bit of a single parent, I have to enjoy it, because I'm sure in a few years and the way most teenage girls are affected by hormones, she'll want nothing to do with me and instead of it being a simple 'no mummy', it'll probably be much, much worse.

OTHER STUFF

iPad skills!
Since coming back from Japan Chloe is insanely good at the iPad. She can navigate it, select an app and play a variety of games. Her fave (thanks Lucy Hunt) is an app by Toca Boca called Pet Café. She is so skilled at dragging, sorting, tapping, it really scares me. The only hiccup is if she hits any advertising, she hasn't figured out how to exit out of the app store and since I'm a cheap skate and don't pay for any apps, a lot of mine have advertising.

Mothers Day
For Mother's Day (and Rob's Birthday) we headed to Maitland for the weekend. Arriving Friday and leaving Sunday. It was a bit of a whirlwind and one I still haven't truly recovered from thanks to a busy weekend last as well. Its always a blast hanging out with Mum and Rob and I'm really enjoying Mum and Is new relationship, being a Nanny definitely agrees with her. And she's such a natural at it. After mummy, daddy, nanny is always Chloe's next word. She just loves her nanny. It makes me sad that they live so far away, but makes me appreciate the time we have together so much more.

Teeth
So as I mentioned two days ago I spied Chloe's top left hand eye tooth coming in, well, actually through.... the right hand side has the white tip and bump that appears just before they break through the gum. So once through that will make 14 teeth in total... with the bottom eye teeth and second year molars yet to arrive. Then we're done and dusted, as far as baby teeth go. Woohoo!

Modelling
Chloe's approaching the end of her first year modelling contract and Jarratt and I have decided to renew it. Since last post the Babies R Us baby book has been released, she's appeared again for Mother and Baby in both their magazine and website and has been made the profile pic for her agencies Facebook page.  She also recently did another shoot for Big W. We arrived on set and it was very crowded, more so than usual. Chloe was given a beautiful hello kitty dress with attached pantaloons and matching hat. I put her in it and set her up in front of the camera, she smiled and posed as she always does.... but the outfit needed a lot of adjusting and after three or so goes of fiddling to her it just right. Chloe waved her hand at the photographer and said 'no', walked over to me and sat down. I tried to put her back in front of the camera and she cried, no mummy! So I said to the photographer.... I think we're done. They weren't entirely sure they got the photo and explained they would put someone else in the outfit that afternoon. I said that was fine, and I wasn't making her do anything she didn't want to do. They respected that and we headed home. It will be interesting to see if they use the photos they got of her, or another child... as it was a difficult outfit. I didn't get the date that the catalogue comes out, I'm hoping I haven't missed it. Keep your eyes peeled for me.

Until next time, xxx